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Gradooration's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Mental Engagement | #31 | 2.390 | 2.857 |
| Emotional Engagement | #63 | 1.554 | 1.857 |
| Overall | #65 | 1.817 | 2.171 |
| Atmosphere | #66 | 2.271 | 2.714 |
| Lasting Impression | #73 | 1.554 | 1.857 |
| Characterization | #83 | 1.315 | 1.571 |
Ranked from 7 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
i dug the basic idea and whole future dystopic setting. the graphics and shaders you used looked very nice, however they were very distracting, not just when looking around, but particularly regarding the game's one and only real mechanic.
morse code puzzle is a fun idea, but with the way it's staged it's impossible to see the puzzle and the morse code guide, and the keyboard at the same time. in fact, the shader actively made it unreadable if i tried to have both in view. it was only by typing into a web tool that i could solve it reasonably. a more fleshed out version might have progressive bits that teach you morse code in small bits until you get to a puzzle like the one you have. check out 'the witness' for a game that does this sort of thing very well.
would've been nice to see a little more twist in the revelation. in this case it was exactly as expected, and didn't really payoff the difficulty. i know it's not quite fair, but this sort of thing has been mined to death so much in every media that you see it a mile away.
so find a way to have the whole puzzle in view: keyboard, clue, and solution because asking to recognize, type, and decode all at once is literally a skill that takes weeks of training.
great effort!
Thanks for your suggestions!! This was my first game jam and my first completed game so I'm very inexperienced with stuff like shaders, animations, and lighting (along with a lot of other post-processing features). I did notice the issue with not being able to read all of it in frame but wasn't sure how to fix it. If you move closer to the translation sheet you could still read it so I just left it as I was basically out of time. I was also thinking of implementing a notepad built into the game where you could type the dots and dashes as they are shown, then decode that while looking at the translation sheet, but again ran out of time.
Ideally, I would've added more puzzles leading up to the main one that introduce the idea of hidden messages through morse code earlier, but my main goal was to avoid scope creep and actually finish the game. Also, I wanted players to make it to the end of the game so that they get the payoff of the end of the story.
My storytelling definitely needs work, any suggestions as to how I could've added more of a twist to the classic trope I went for?
Thanks for playing and again for all the great feedback! :)
I think there's striking eerie imagery here, like the video screens with identical versions of the "outdoors." And I do really want to find out what's on the other side of those doors! But it turns out I do not, apparently, have the attention span to transcribe Morse code in a game, especially a looping message with a time limit. I attempted a couple of letters, lost count, realized I'd transcribed an unpromising double M, and decided it was a losing battle.
Thanks!! I’m glad you noticed the TV screens (something happens with those at some point ;)) and really hope you give it another try to see what’s behind the gradoor because I think you’ll like the ending! Morse code is quite difficult to translate/read, especially if you’ve never done it before. I suggest using a piece of paper and writing down the dots and dashes, then translating those on the paper.
Yeah, no, that's exactly what I attempted to do and that's just not going to happen. In a jam, you always need to be evaluating whether putting in a really difficult puzzle is more important to you than people actually seeing the rest of your game.
Hmm ok fair enough. This was my first Jam so I’m still learning how to balance stuff, thanks for the advice!!
Seems cool but I don't understand what I'm meant to do. There are directions for morse code, but then there's a keyboard where you can just type the characters without morse code, but then I have no idea what I'm meant to type...
Look near the keyboard for something that could be flashing a morse code sequence at Greg.
Not bad! I unexpectedly learned some morse code today haha
Thanks! I might make a game purely to learn/teach morse code now that I have a foundation to go off of for that.